Venture capital investment in the local biomedical sector declined by 20 percent in 2017 from a year earlier, industry data showed Thursday. Venture capital refers to a financing by companies or funds to emerging firms with high growth potential.

According to data from the Korean Venture Capital Association, the volume of venture capital’s new investment in the biotechnology and medical sector dropped by 19.5 percent to 318.9 billion won ($299.7 million) during 11 months until November 2017, down from 396.2 billion won a year earlier. During the same period, the venture capital’s total investment in all industries rose by 11 percent to 2.05 trillion won from 1.85 trillion won a year ago.

The biomedical sector, which attracted the largest investment of 468.6 billion won from venture capital in 2016, ranked third last year, as the ICT (information and communications technology) service sector received the most and the retail/service industry, the second most.

A reduction in venture capital investment in the biomedical industry also sapped the proportion of the sector’s investment out of the total new investment. The biomedical sector’s investment accounted for 16 percent of the total new investment of venture capital during the 11 months until November 2017, down by 5 percentage points from 21 percent a year earlier.

The ICT service sector obtained the most venture capital investment of 445.9 billion won during the 11 months last year, which is 127 billion won more than that of the biomedical industry. The retail/service industry attracted 363.3 billion won investment during the same period.

The retail/service sector had the fastest growth in new investment with a 70 percent year-to-year jump in venture capital investment during the first 11 months of last year. In 2016, the sector had a 23 percent decline in venture capital investment from 2015.

The ICT manufacturing sector, which had suffered a 41 percent drop in investment in 2016, saw investment surging by 63 percent in 2017, trailing the retail/service sector regarding investment growth rate.

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